Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Skene, Alexander Johnston Chalmers

SKENE, Alexander Johnston Chalmers, physician, b. in Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 17 June, 1837. He was educated chiefly in the schools of Aberdeen, and studied medicine at King's college, Scotland, at the University of Michigan, and at Long Island college hospital, where he was graduated in 1863. From July, 1863, till June, 1864, he was acting assistant surgeon in the U. S. army. In 1864 he settled in Brooklyn, where he has since been engaged in successful practice. Dr. Skene was adjunct physician in Long Island college hospital in 1864, appointed professor of gynecology there in 1872, and dean of the faculty in 1886. He was professor of gynecology in the Post-graduate medical school of New York in 1884, and is president of the American gynecological society. He performed the first successful operation of gastro-elytrotomy that is recorded, and also that of craniotomy, using Sims's speculum. He has invented about twelve surgical instruments, has written numerous articles for the medical journals, and published “Uro-Cystic and Urethral Diseases in Women” (New York, 1877), and “Treatise on Diseases of Women, for the Use of Students and Practitioners” (1888).